Photo courtesy of Nirvana.com
A dose of ‘90s nostalgia graced Ramapo’s campus Saturday, Nov. 3, with Ramapo Music Club’s “‘90s Night” held in the Alumni Lounges. It hosted six musical acts — four supporting bands and two headliners — with four out of six including students from the Ramapo campus.
The event featured a chance to get a Polaroid photo taken with ‘90s-themed posters, an assortment of food such as Goldfish Crackers, Yoo-hoo, Capri Sun plus other theme-keeping snacks and a myriad of jokes about the legitimacy of ‘90s nostalgia for 2000s babies.
The line-up consisted of The Breakout, The Scarlet V’s, Gunnar Hopson, The Dis-ease, The Astronaut and ended with James Martorana accompanied by Mike Oregano. Many have played at shows hosted by the RMC before. These artists played a variety of covers from famous ‘90s bands such as Nirvana, Blink-182, Green Day, Weezer and much more with some originals sprinkled in the mix.
Andy Baez, a sophomore and singer/guitarist of The Breakout, said, “I chose the set. I’m the most into the ‘90s out of all of us [in the band],” and explained his choices as being some well-known songs and some personal favorites.
Some bands played a bit with expectations of the audience. As Charlie Mezini of The Scarlet V’s proclaimed before launching into song, “This is an original we had, but I think it sounds ‘90s so it’s ‘90s.”
This event came about after being voted on within a Ramapo Music Club meeting and was chosen instead of a proposed “Emo Night,” senior Kevin Laudenbach, the secretary and publicist of music club, said.
He took on most of the responsibilities for putting together this show. It was difficult to find bands willing to play mostly cover sets, though after much searching it came together.
“I posted about it on our personal Facebook and Instagram class of 2020 pages … Nobody responded to the messages I sent out compared to last time with the ‘Indie Show’ where at least 40 people responded,” Laudenbach explained.
He said The Breakout had been contacted personally as they had played the RMC and Ramapo Pride’s Queer Punk Show last year where he had been their drummer.
Despite the lack of volunteer bands, the six acts presented a fun show and the people who came out for a Saturday night of music seemed pleased. Though the bands and band tee/flannel-sporting audience were happy to be there, members of the music club expressed regret more people were not there.
Senior Reeve Harden, RMC’s vice president said she believed the event to go well but said, “We wish more people came.”
The students who showed spent the night enjoying over three hours of music and the club is already thinking of things to do for shows next semester.
gmanleym@ramapo.edu
